‘ KB i Gardens 
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OF ILLINOIS 
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A BOOK OF GARDENS 


THE FOULIS BOOKS 
































IN THE GARDEN OF E.V.B. 


A BOOK OF 
GARDENS 





ae IN COLOUR. BY 
ARET H. WATERFIELD 
iil Decorations By 
AMW.GRAHAM BROWN 


TNFOULIS 
London & Edinburgh 


/G LO 





» 


REMOTE STORAGE 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1. THe CHARM oF THE GARDEN I 
E.V.B. 

11. THE Portry or GARDENING . 9 
T. James 

111. SUNDIALS . . . . ° 29 
Alice Meynell 

tv. My Own Garpen , . ° . 35 
Alexander Smith 

v. THe GARDEN or ENCHANTMENT . , 55 
Alphonse Karr 

v1, Quzrn Mary’s Cuitp-Garpen 69 
Dr. John Brown 

vir. A VanisHep GARDEN , ° . . $1 
Sir Walter Scott 

vi, A GARDEN BY THE CLYDE . . . 87 
Christopher North 

1X. Cowper’s GarpEn : : : : 97 
From Letters of William Cowper 

x. Or Queens’ Garpens . 123 


John Ruskin 


“7081 





SELECTED AND 
EDITED BY 
ALFRED H. HYATT 


ILLUSTRATIONS 





From Water-Colour Drawings by 
Marcaret H. WarTeERFIELD 


In THE GarRDEN or E. V, B. 


Facing page 
Tue Garpzn’s CuoicesT Flowers : . 24 
Tuxirs AND Lirac : ° “ 40. 
A SouTHERN GARDEN . . : : 56 
Tue Grove : . . . . . a2 
VARIEGATED WITH MANY A FLUSH OF FLoweErs 88 
SPRING . . . . ° « + 104 


Tur SUNDIAL 


. Frontispiece 


e ° 120 


TO 


DOLORES ALWYN 


I 
THE CHARM OF THE GARDEN 


E. V: B 


— 
Se 
Peep eke 
a ene 





THE CHARM OF THE GARDEN 
A S the darkest hour is said to be just 


beforethedawn,so the point where 
spring and winter meet may prove the 
most comfortless of seasons. Frost has 
disheartened the tender springing that 
had begun among green things under the 
earth. Snow has lain with heavy weight 
on garden borders and flower-beds, flat- 
tening them into dull unsightliness. 
Hardly does one care to leave the warm 
fireside at home, though rooksare calling 
in the elms, and maybe a broken note or 
two is heard now and then from some 
ever-hopeful wild-bird perched on some 
bare tree. 
There seems as yet so little to tempt 
one to go out !—so little, except per- 


haps the winter aconites’ chill yellow, 
3 


The wintry 
garden 


4 THE CHARM OF THE GARDEN 
Oldgardensor snowdrops’ frozen loveliness—albeit 
these may be a large exception. There 
is now nothing scarcely to inspire ; only 


that one word GARDEN—a word so full 





of charm, that simply to behold it printed 
outside a book makes us long immedi- 
ately to look inside that book. 

A long while ago, perhaps, the name 
of garden, as such, bore slighter meaning. 
Gardens were more like pleasant shades 
to spend long summer days in. People 
seemed to live in them more than they 
now do—in England. Soat least it would 
seem, judging by the old prints and oil 
paintings that remain of garden scenes. 
Perhaps the summers were hotter then 
in those distant days, and fair ladies 
and courtly gentlemen walked together 
under the trees, or conversed sitting in 
temples and arbours (which I think we 


THE CHARM OF THE GARDEN § 
in these unromantic days less often care Garden. 
to do). ae 
If the modern love for flower-gardens 
be a fashion of the day, a purer or more 
innocent fashion could scarcely be im- 
agined. If the sweet old childlike delight 
of our forefathers and mothers in their 
groves and fountains and hidden paths 
and hedged-in lawns be lost now in the 
rivalry of cultivation of unnumbered 
species of plants and brilliant bands of 
‘bedding out,’ it must be forgiven for the 
sake of the healthful, happy, garden-love 
which does everywhere prevail. 
Everybody loves a garden! Men feel 
the charm to the full as much as women 
do, though the latter may have more 
eisure toenjoy it. And labour or dream- 
ing in a garden, may often suggest to the 
gardener’s mind beautiful and fruitful 


A nation’s 
tribute 


6 THE CHARM. OF THE GARDEN 


thoughts. So was it with Miss Close, to 
whom the nation owed the inspiration of 
the people’s laurel wreaths, for the pass- 
ing of The Queen’s Funeral on the and 
of February 1901. This lady haselected 
to bea practical working gardener ; and 
she is a devoted lover of the art. It was 
when at work in her garden that she 
willed that the poorest in the land should 
unite with -the richest to honour the 
passing of the Great Queen through the 
streets of London. She asked the public 
for laurel wreaths. Instantly thousands 
responded to the call. Thousands of 
green garlands were woven and sent 
forth, till they reached in double line 
along the whole route of the splendid 
procession. And thus it came to pass 
that the love-tributes of England’s poor, 
even from remotest villages throughout 


THE CHARM OF THE GARDEN 7 


the country, hung side by side that day Among the 
with laurels of the great. ‘’Thus noble rhs 
thought to noble deed is wrought.’ 
Doubt it not that many a delightful 
thought will come to those who work or 
linger amid the flowers—those fairest of 
allGod’sworks. It is not without founda- 

tion that we have faithyin the eternal 
truth of the words byan old writer,‘Who 

loves a garden still his Eden keeps,’ And 

there is nothing thatwillso long preserve 

le coeur en fete as the indulgence of a pure 

deep passion for the garden, and for all 

that is beautiful in Nature. 








it 
THE POETRY OF GARDENING 


T. JAMES 


. Peon 2: 
ey mtg ae = 


a eee Ce 
tg ey - 





THE POETRY OF GARDENING 
‘Lilia mista rosis’ 


5 OD ALMIGHTY first planted The essay 
: ite of essays 
GC a garden, and indeed it is the 
purest of all human pleasures!’ I love 
Lord Bacon for that saying more than 
for his being the author of the Novum 
Organum, Willingly I would give up his 
four folio volumes of philosophy for his 
one little book of essays, and all these for 
his one little essay on gardening. 

Dear old Evelyn himself never eyed 
with more complacency his four hundred 
feet of holly ‘blushing with its natural 
coral,’than Bacon does his fantastic vision 
of a ‘stately arched hedge.’ I envy not 
that man’s heart who can view with in- 
difference the great philosopher indulg- 


ing in his day-dreams of a spacious plea- 
ul 


12 THE POETRY OF GARDENING 
Unpoetic saunce, where fruits, from the orange to 
gardening f 
the service tree, and flowers, from the 
stately hollyhock to the tuft of wild 
thyme, are to flourish, each in its proper 
place. 

Of all the vain assumptions of these 
coxcombical times, that which arrogates 
the pre-eminence in the true science of 
gardening isthe vainest. “True, our con- 
servatories are full of the choicest plants 
from everyclime; we ripen the grapeand 
the pine-apple with an art unknown be- 
fore, and even the mango, the mango- 
steen, and the guava are made to yield 
their matured fruits ; but the real beauty 
and poetry of a garden are lost in our 
efforts after rarity, and strangeness, and 
variety. ‘To be the possessor of a unique 
pansy, the introducer of a new specimen 
of the Orchidacez, or the cultivator of 


THE POETRY OF GARDENING 13 
five hundred choice varieties of the dah- 
lia, is now the only claim to gardening 
celebrity and horticultural medals. 

And then our lot has fallen in the evil 
days of system. We are proud of our 
natural or English style; and scores 
of unmeaning flower-beds, disfiguring 
the lawn in the shapes of kidneys, and 
tadpoles, and sausages, and leeches, and 
commas, are the result. Landscape-gar- 
dening has encroached too much up- 
on gardening proper; and this has had 
the same effect upon our gardens that 
horticultural societies have had on our 
fruits—to make us entertain the vulgar 
notion that size is virtue. If we review 
the various styles that have prevailed in 
England, from the knotted gardens of 
Elizabeth, the pleach-work and intricate 
flower-borders of James 1., the painted 


The evil 
days of 
system 


The 


topiary art 


4°THE POETRY OF GARDENING 
Dutch statues and canals of William and 
Mary, the winding gravel walks and 
lake-making of Brown, to poor Shen- 
stone’s sentimental farm and the land- 
scape fashion of the present day—we 
shall have little reason to pride ourselves 
on the advance which national taste has 
made upon the earliest efforts in this de- 
partment. 

If I am to have a system at all, give 
me the good old system of terraces and 
angled walks, and clipt yew - hedges, 
against whose dark and rich verdure the 
bright old-fashioned flowers glittered in 
the sun. I love the topiary art, with 
its trimness and primness, and its open 
avowal of its artificial character. It re- 
pudiates at the first glance the skulking 
and cowardly ‘celare artem’ principle, 


and, in its vegetable sculpture, is the pro- 


THE POETRY OF GARDENING 15 


perest transition from thearchitecture of Vegetable 


the house to the natural beauties of the 
grove and paddock. 

Who, to whom the elegance, and 
gentlemanliness, and poetry—the Boc- 
caccio-spirit—of a scene of Watteau is 
familiar, does not regret the devasta- 
tion made by fasty innovators upon the 
grounds laid out in the times of the 
Jameses and Charleses? As for old Noll, 
I am certain, though I have not a jot of 
evidence, that he cared no more fora 
garden than for an anthem ; he wou'd as 
lief have sacrificed the verdant sculpture 
of a yew-peacock as the time-honoured 
tracery of a cathedral shrine; and his 
crop-eared soldiery would have had as 
great satisfaction in bivouacking in the 
parterres of a ‘ royal pleasaunce’ as in the 
presence-chamber of a royal palace. It 


sculpture 


Oxford 
gardens 


1 THE POETRY OF GARDENING 
were a sorrow beyond tears to dwell on 
the destruction of garden-stuff in those 
king-killing times. “Thousands, doubt- 
less, of broad-paced terraces and trim 
vegetable conceits sunk in the same ruin 
with their mansions and their masters : 
and alas! modern taste has followed in 
the footsteps of ancient fanaticism. How 
many old associations have been rooted 
up with the knotted stumps of yew and 
hornbeam! And Oxford, too,in the van 
of reform! Beautiful as are St. John’s 
Gardens, who would not exchange them 
for the very walks and alleys along which 
Laud, in all the pardonable pride of col- 
legiate lionising, conducted his illus- 
trious guests, Charles and Henrietta? 
Who does not grieve that we must now 
inquire in vain for the bowling-green in 
Christ Church, where Cranmer solaced 


THE POETRY OF GARDENING 17 


the weariness of his last confinement? 
And who lately, in reading Scott’s life, 
but must have mourned in sympathy 
with the poet over the destruction of 
‘the huge hill of leaves,’ and the yew 
and hornbeam hedges of the ‘ Garden’ 
at Kelso. 

In those days of arbours and bowers, 
gardening was an art, not a mystery ; 
and such an art that the simplest mind 
could comp:ehend it. They who loved 
couldlearn. The onlyinitiation required 
was into the arcana of the herb-garden, 
and the concoction of simples. This was 
a necessary part of education then.... 
They had their own little garden, where 
they knew every flower, because they 
were few; and every name, because they 
were simple. ‘Their rose bushes and 
gilliflowers were dear to them, because 


Pr 
Dv 


The herb 
garden 


18 THE POETRY OF GARDENING 


My garden themselves had pruned and watered and 
watched them, had marked from day to 
day their opening buds, and removed 
their faded blossoms, and had cherished 
each choicest specimen for the posy to 
be worn on the christening of the squire’s 
heir or on my lord’s birthday. 

Nor is it in names only that much of 
the poetry of our garden has departed. In 
the flowers themselves we have too often 
made a change for the worse. ‘Take 
a stroll with me while I show you my 
garden as it is, or Is to be. 

My garden should lie to the south of 
the house ; the ground gradually sloping 
for some short way till it falls abruptly 
into the dark and tangled shrubberies 
that all but hide the winding brook 
below. A broad terrace, half as wide, at 
least, as the house is high, should run 


THE POETRY OF GARDENING 19 
along the whole southern length of the 
building, extending to the western side 
also, whence, over the distant country, I 
may catch the last red light of the setting 
sun. I musthavesome musk and noisette 
roses, and jasmine,to run up the mullions 
of my oriel window, and honeysuckles 
and clematis, the white, the purple, and 
the blue, to cluster round the top. ‘The 
upper terrace should be strictly architec- 
tural, and no plants are to be harboured 
there, save such as twine among the 
balustrades, or fix themselves in the 
mouldering crevices of the stone. I can 
endure no plants in pots—a plant in a 
pot is like a bird in a cage. The gourd 
alone throws out its vigorous tendrils, 
and displays its green and golden fruit 
from the vases that surmount the broad 
flight ofstone steps that lead to the lower 


Some olde 
fashioned 
flowers 


20 THE POETRY OF GARDENING 


The terrace ; while a vase of larger dimen- 
ieee sions and bolder sculpture at the western 
flowers corner is backed by the heads of a mass 
of crimson, rose, and straw-coloured 
hollyhocks that spring up from the bank 
below. ‘The lower terrace is twice the 
width of the one above, of the most 
velvety turf, laid out in an elaborate 
pattern of the Italian style. Herearecol- 
lected the choicest flowers of the garden; 
the Dalmatic purple of the gentianella, 
the dazzling scarlet of the verbena, the 
fulgent lobelia, the bright yellows and 
rich browns of the calceolaria here lux- 
uriate in their trimly cut parterres, and 
with colours as brilliant as the mosaic of 

an old cathedral painted window 


‘ Broider the ground 
With rich inlay.”? 


1 ¢Tot fuerant iilic, quot habet natura, colores : 
Pictaque dissimili flore nitebat humus,’— Ovid, 


THE POETRY OF GARDENING 21 


But you must leave this mass of gor- Among 
geous colouring and the two pretty foun- bee 
tains that play in their basins of native 
rock, while you descend the flight of 
steps, simpler than those of the upper 
terrace, and turn to the left hand, where 
a broad gravel walk will lead you to 
the kitchen-garden, through an avenue 
splendid in autumn with hollyhocks, 
dahlias, China asters, nasturtiums, and 
African marigolds. 

Wewillstop short of thewalled garden 
to turn among the clipt hedges of box, 
and yew, and hornbeam which surround 
the bowling-green, and lead to a curi- 
ously formed labyrinth, in the centre 
of which, perched up on a triangular 
mound, is a fanciful old summer-house, 
with a gilded roof, that commands the 
view of the whole surrounding country. 


22 THE POETRY OF GARDENING 


A sundial Quaintdevices of all kinds are found here. 
of fowers Frere is a sundial of flowers, arranged 
according to the time of day at which 
they open and close. Here are peacocks 
and lions in livery of Lincoln green. 
Here are berceaux and arbours, and 
covered alleys, and enclosures contain- 
ing the primest of the carnations and 
cloves in set order, and miniature canals 
that carrydownastream of pure water to 
the fish-ponds below. Further onwards, 
and up the south bank, verging towards 
the house, are espaliers and standards of 
the choicest fruit-trees ; here are straw- 
berry-beds raised so as to be easy for 
gathering ; while the round gooseberry 
and currant bushes, and the arched rasp- 
berries continue the formal style up the 
walls of the enclosed garden, whose outer 
sides are clothed alternately with fruit 


THE POETRY OF GARDENING 23 

and flowers, so that the ‘stranger within The lower 
the house’ may be satisfied, without being fires 
tantalised by the rich reserves within the 
gate of iron tracery of which the head 
gardener keeps the key. 

Return to the steps of the lower ter- 
race: what a fine slope of green pasture 
loses itself in the thorn, hazel, and holly 
thicket below, while the silver thread 
of the running brook here and there 
sparkles in the light; and how happily 
the miniature prospect, framed by the 
gnarled branches of those gigantic oaks, 
discloses the white spire of the village 
church in the middle distance! While 
in the background the smoke, drifting 
athwart the base of the purple hill, gives 
evidence that the evening fires are just 
lit in the far-off town. 

At the right-hand corner of the lower 


Rock plants 


24 THE POETRY OF GARDENING 


terrace the ground falls more abruptly 
away, and the descent into the lawn, 
which is overlooked from the high wes- 
tern terrace, is, by two or three steps 
at a time, cut out in the native rock of 
red sandstone, which also forms the base 
of the terrace itself. Rock plants of every 
description freely grow in the crevices of 
the rustic battlement which flanks the 
path on either side; the irregularity of 
the structure increases as you descend, 
till, on arriving on the lawn below, large 
rude masses lie scattered on the turf 
and along the foundation of the western 
terrace, 

A profusion of the most exquisite 
climbing roses of endless variety here 
clamber up till they bloom over the very 
balustrade of the higher terrace, or creep 
over the rough stones at the foot of the 





THE POETRY OF. GARDENING 25 


descent. Here stretching to the south The 

7 : nosegay of 
is the nosegay of the garden. Mignon- the ate 
ette, ‘the Frenchman’s darling,’ and the 
musk-mimulus spring out of every fissure 


of the sandstone; while beds of violets, 


‘That strew the green lap of the new-come 
Spring,’ 
and lilies of the valley scent the air below. 
Beds of heliotrope flourish around the 
isolated block of sandstone ; the fuchsia, 
alone inodorous, claims a place from its 
elegance; and honeysuckles and clematis 
of all kinds trail along the ground, or 
twine up the stands of rustic baskets, 
filled with the more choice odoriferous 
plants of the greenhouse. ‘The scented 
heath, the tuberose, and the rarer Jjas- 
mines have each their place, while the 
sweet-briar and the wall-flower, and the 


clove and stock-gilliflower are not too 


A 
wilderness 
of sweets 


26 THE POETRY OF GARDENING 


common to be neglected. To bask upon 
the dry sunny rock on a bright spring 
morning in the midst of this ‘ wilderness 
of sweets,’ or on a dewy summer’s eve 
to lean over the balustrade above, while 
every breath from beneath wafts up the 
perfumed air, 
‘Stealing and giving odour,’ 

is one of the greatest luxuries [ have in 
life. 

A little further on the lawn are the 
trunks and stumps of old pollards hol- 
lowed out ; and, from the cavities, filled 
with rich mould, climbers, creepers, 
trailers, and twiners of every hue and 
habit form a picturesque group. 

It were tedious to follow up the long, 
shady path, not broad enough for more 
than two—the ‘ lover’s walk,’ and the 


THE POETRY OF GARDENING 27 


endless windings in the natural wood, The wood 
. ‘ and its 
till you burst upon a wild common of = gowers 


‘Tooth’d briars, sharp furzes, prickly gorse, 
and thorns,’ 

glowing with heather bloom,and scented 
with the perfume of the furze, just such 
an English scene as Linnzus is said to 
have fallen down and worshipped the first 
time he beheldit. The heavy dew upon 
the grass reminds me that we have taken 
too longa stroll, and though I could have 
wished tohave shown you myarboretum, 
my thornery, and my deodara pine, yet 
the light from the drawing-room win- 
dows, which I can see through the trees, 
calls us homeward, and bids us leave that 
picture for another day. 

Some love for flowers, however, we 


should have, if Cicero, and Shakespeare, 


28 THE POETRY OF GARDENING 
Loversof and Bacon,and Temple, and Buffon, and 
ui Scott, be any authority with us at all. 
. . . What indeed were the Elysian 
‘ fields, and the Happy Isles, and the 
gardens of the Hesperides, but so many 
incorporations of the highest flights of 

man’s imaginations and desires! 





SP a CAIs AN 
wad hg Maoh 
Say 
A we 


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Na Saas 
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Salieri 


Fitted) 





SUNDIALS 


‘HE garden clock of sunny cli- The best 


mates is necessarily the companion pata 
of hours so beautiful that the mere name 
‘ Sundial’ is dear to those who care for 
gardens, for phrases, for the sun, and for 
the South. The best gardens are those 
which other ages made and ‘kept up,’and 
which our own age—an unthrifty heir— 
has allowed to grow somewhat wild with 
random grass, and somewhat dry with 
sun. We ‘enter into the labours’ of our 
fathers; not into the perfection which 
they prepared, but into its gentle and 
more beautiful ruin and undoing. And - 
we inherit something peculiarly theirs in 
the ancient garden — their usually aus- 
tere sundial mottoes. Amodern man en- 


joys the bee-visited, grass-grown, and 
31 


32 SUNDIALS 


The sun- fragrant paths that no gardener trims, 
dial of a 
childhood’s though the man who made the paths 


sarden would hardly approve them so; a mod- 
ern man reads the warnings of a seven- 
teenth-century sculptor, letting its lesson 
go by. 

‘Thesundial of my ownchiidhood faced 
a blue sea, across olive and oleander, and 
it bore an inscription which, translated, 
threatened the generations: ‘Thouseest 
the hour, but knowest not the hour’— 
‘of thy death,’ wesupposed. Inthe twen- 
tieth century no man would engrave that 
thought above the terraces of such a 
heavenly garden. Other Italian palaces 
had, likewise, severe things written on 
their sunward faces, or on their garden 
dials. But, sombre or genial, the sun- 
dial motto, devised according to the ap- 
propriate art, has the beauty of brevity 


SUNDIALS 33 

and fulness. No wonder if to the preci- a symbolic 
sion of Latingrammar has been generally “°™P*"Y 
assigned the safeguarding of the message 
of three or four words, long, slow, and 
complete with their burden of meaning. 

Thereare tunes composed for bells, and 
as this brief music, so is this brief litera- 
ture, restricted to the means and the 
opportunity, and full of vigour within 
those bonds. The phrase and the melody 
both have their home on the happy Lig- 
uriancoast. For thoughsundials number 
the fewserene hours of Northern gardens, 
they are most useful in the South and the 
sun, and because of their use they take 
their place in the noble symbolic com- 
pany standing by palace walls: the sun- 
dial for time, the cypress for death, wheat 

for life, and the vine for joy. 








MY OWN GARDEN 


ALEXANDER SMITH Sugeh 














MY OWN GARDEN 


ale, house I dwell in stands apart Z 


n old. 
shioned 


from the littletown, and relatesit- satden 


selftothe houses asI dotothe inhabitants. 
It sees everything, butis itself unseen,or, 
at allevents,unregarded. My study-win- 
dow looks down upon Dreamthorp like a 
meditative eye. Without meaning it, I 
feel | am a spy on the on-goings of the 
quiet place. Around my house there is 
an old-fashioned rambling garden, with 
close-shaven grassy plots,and fantastically 
clipped yews which have gathered their 
darkness from a hundred summers and 
winters; and sundials in which the sun 
is constantly telling hisage; and statues 
green with neglect and the stains of the 
weather. The garden I love more than 


any place on earth; it is a better study 
37 


Silence and 
fragrance 


38 MY OWN GARDEN 


than the room inside the house which is 
dignified by that name. I like to pace 
its gravelled walks, to sit in the moss- 
house, which is warm and cosy as a 
bird’s nest, and wherein twilight dwells 
at noonday; to enjoy the feast of colour 
spread for me in the curiously shaped 
floral spaces. My garden, with its silence 
and the pulses of fragrance that come and 
goon the airy undulations, affects me like 
sweet music. Care stops at the gates, 
and gazes at me wistfully through the 
bars. Among my flowers and trees 
Nature takes me into her own hands, and 
I breathe freely as the first man. It 
is Curious, pathetic almost, I sometimes 
think, how deeply seated in the human 
heart is the liking for gardens and garden- 
ing. The sickly seamstress in the narrow 
city lane tends her box of sicklier mig- 


MY OWN GARDEN 39 


nonette. The retired merchant is as fond 
of tulips as ever was Dutchman during 
the famous mania. ‘The author finds a 
garden the best place to think out his 
thought. In thedisabled statesman every 
restless throb of regret or ambition is 
stilled when he looks upon his blossomed 
apple-trees. Is the fancy too far brought 
that this love for gardens is a reminis- 
cence haunting the race of that remote 
time in the world’s dawn when but two 
persons existed,—a gardener named 
Adam, and a gardener’s wife called 
Eve? 

When I walk out of my house into my 
garden I walk out of my habitual self, 
my every-day thoughts, my customari- 
ness of joy or sorrow by which I recog~ 
nise and assure myself of my own iden- 
tity. These | leave behind me fora time, 


A place for 
thoughts 


hi MY OWN GARDEN 


A bird’s as the bather leaves his garments on the 


nest 


beach. This piece of garden-ground, in 
extent barely a square acre, is a kingdom 
with its own interests, annals, and inci- 
dents. Something is always happening 
in it. ‘To-day is always different from 
yesterday. ‘Thisspring achaffinch built 
a nest in one of my yew-trees. ‘The 
particular yew which the bird did me the 
honour to select had been clipped long 
ago into a similitude of Adam, and, in 
fact, went by his name. ‘The resem- 
blance to a human figure was, of course, 
remote, but the intention was evident. In 
the black shock head of our first parent 
did the birds establish their habitation. 
A prettier, rounder, more comfortable 
nest I never saw, and many a wild swing 
it got when Adam bent his back, and 
bobbed and shook his head when the 


JWITITGNY Sd 


OL 








MY OWN GARDEN hs 


bitter east wind was blowing. The nest 
interested me, and [ visited it every day 
from the time the first stained turquoise 
sphere was laid in the warm lining of 
moss and horse-hair, till, when I chirped, 
four red hungry throats, eager for worm 
or slug, opened out of a confused mass of 
feathery down. Whata hungry brood it 
was, to be sure, and how often father and 
mother were put to it to provide them 
sustenance! I went but the other day 
to have a peep, and, behold! brood and 
parent-birds were gone, the nest was 
empty, Adam’s visitors had departed. In 
thecorners of my bedroom window I have 
a couple of swallows’ nests, and nothing 
can be pleasanter in these summer morn- 
ings than to lie in a kind of half-dream, 
conscious all the time of the chatterings 
and endearments of the man-loving crea- 


The 


swallows 


The 
swallow. 
world 


42 MY OWN GARDEN 


tures. They are beautifully restless, and 
are continually darting around their nests 
in thewindow-corners. Allat once there 
is a great twittering and noise; some- 
thing of moment has been witnessed, 
something of importance has occurred 
in the swallow-world,—perhaps a fly of 
unusual size or savour has been bolted. 
Clinging with their feet, and with heads 
turned charmingly aside, they chatter 
away with voluble sweetness, then with 
a gleam of silver they are gone, and in 
a trice one is poising itself in the wind 
above my tree-tops, while the other dips 
her wing as she darts after a fly through 
the arches of the bridge which lets the 
slow stream down to thesea. I go to 
the southern wall, against which I have 
trained my fruit-trees, and find it a sheet 
of white and vermil blossom; and as I 


RAIN IN A GARDEN 


By ELEANorR HAMMOND 


The silvering Willow drips and sighs, 
In the Pansy’s eye is a round bright tear, 
But Lady Daffodil shakes her frills 


And hangs a raindrop in her ear! 





pL OPe Ud CY OAR LO Lend Coy WN =o atk Gy renee 





MY OWN GARDEN 43 


know it by heart, I can notice what 
changes take place on it day by day, 
what later clumps of buds have burst into 
colour and odour, What beauty in that 
blooming wall! the wedding-presents of 
a princess ranged for admiration would 
not please me halfsomuch; whatdelicate 
colouring ! what fragrance the thievish 
winds steal from it, without making it 
one odour the poorer! with what acom- 
placent hum the bee goes past! My 
chaffinch’s nest, my swallows, twittering 
but a few months ago around the kraal 
of the Hottentot, or chasing flies around 
the six solitary pillars of Baalbec,— 
with their nests in the corners of my bed- 
room windows, my long-armed fruit- 
trees flowering against my sunny wall, 
are not mighty pleasures, but then they 
are my own, and I have not to go in 


A southern 
wall 


Content- 
ment 


44 MY OWN GARDEN 


searchofthem. Andso, likea wise man, 
Iam content with what I have, and make 
it richer by my fancy, which is as cheap 
as sunlight, and gilds objects quite as 
prettily. It is the coins in my own 
pocket,not the coins in the pockets of my 
neighbour, that are of use to me. Dis- 
content has never a doit in her purse, and 
envy is the most poverty stricken of the 
passions. 

His own children, and the children he 
happens to meet on the country road, a 
man regards with quite different eyes. 
The strange, sunburnt brats returning 
from a primrose-hunt and laden with 
floral spoils, may be as healthy look- 
ing, as pretty, as well-behaved, as sweet- 
tempered, as neatly dressed as those that 
bear his name,—may be in every respect 
as worthy of love and admiration ; but 


MY OWN GARDEN 45 
then they have the misfortune not to ygaying the 
belong tohim. That little fact makes 8*¢e" 
a great difference. He knows nothing 
about them ; hisacquaintance with them 
is born anddeadina moment. I like my 
garden better than any other garden, for 
the same reason. It is my own. And 
ownership in such a matter implies a 
great deal. When I first settled here, 
the ground around the house was sour 
moorland. I made the walk, planted the 
trees, built the moss-house, erected the 
sundial, brought home the rhododend- 
rons and fed them with the mould which 
they love so well. J am the creator of 
every blossom, of every odour that comes 
and goesin the wind. The rustle of my 
trees is to my ear what his child’s voice 
is to my friends the village doctor or the 
village clergyman. I know the gene- 


Trees 


46 MY OWN GARDEN 


alogy of every tree and plant in my 
garden, I watch their growth as a fa- 
ther watches the growth of his children. 
It is curious encugh, as showing from 
what sources objects derive their import- 
ance, that if you have once planted a tree 
for other than commercial purposes,— 
and in that case it is usually done by your 
orders and by the hands of hirelings,— 
you have always in it a peculiar interest. 
You care more for it than you care for 
all the forests of Norway or America. 
You have planted it, and that is sufficient 


to make it peculiar amongst the trees of 


the world. This personal interest I take 
in every inmate of my garden, and this 
interest I have increased by sedulous 
watching. But, really, trees and plants 
resemble human beings in many ways. 
You shake a packet of seed into your 


MY OWN GARDEN 47 


forcing-frame ; and while some grow, 
others pine and die, or struggle on under 
hereditary defect, showing indifferent 
blossoms late in the season, and succumb 
at length. So far as one could discover, 
the seeds were originally alike,—they re- 
ceived the same care, they were fed by 
the same moisture and sunlight ; but of 
no two of them are the issues the same. 
Do I not see something of this kind in 
the world of men, and can [ not please 
myself with quaint analogies? “These 
plants and trees have their seasons of ill- 
ness and their sudden deaths. Your best 
rose-tree, whose fame has spread for 
twenty miles, is smitten by some fell dis- 
ease; its leaves take an unhealthy hue, 
and in a day or so it is sapless;—dead. A 
tree of mine, the first last spring to put 
out its leaves, and which wore them till 


Quaint 
analogies 


The 
tragedies of 
the garden 


48 MY OWN GARDEN 

November, made thisspring no green re- 
sponse to the call of the sunshine. Mar- 
velling what ailed it, I went to examine, 
and found it had been dead for months ; 
and yet during the winter there had been 
no frost to speak of, and more than its 
brothers and sisters it was in no way 
exposed. ‘These are the tragedies of 
the garden, and they shadow forth other 
tragedies nearer us. In everything we 
find a kind of dim mirror of ourselves. 
Sterne, if placed in a desert, said he would 
love a tree; and I can fancy such a love 
would not be altogether unsatisfying. 
Love of trees and plants is safe. You 
do not run risk in your affections. They 
are my children, silent and beautiful, un- 
touched by any passion, unpolluted by 
evil tempers; for me they leaf and flower 
themselves. In autumn they put off their 


MY OWN GARDEN 49 


rich apparel, but next year they are back 
again, with dresses fair as ever ; and— 
one can extract a kind of fanciful bitter- 
ness from the thought—should I be laid 
in my grave in winter, they would all in 
spring be back again, with facesas bright 
and with breaths as sweet, missing me not 
at all. Ungrateful, the one I am fondest 
of would blossom very prettily if planted 
on the soil that covers me,—where my 
dog would die, where my best friend 
would perhaps raise an inscription ! 
[like flowering plants, but I like trees 
more,—for the reason, I suppose, that 
they are slower in coming to maturity, 
are longer lived, that you can become 
better acquainted with them, and that in 
the course of years memories and associa- 
tions hang as thickly on their boughs as 
do leaves in summer or fruits in autumn. 
D 


Flowers 
and trees 


56 MY OWN GARDEN 


TheI do not wonder that great earls value 
centuries’ . . . 
witnesses their trees, and never, save in direst ex- 

tremity,lift upon them theaxe. Ancient 
descent and glory are made audible in 
the proud murmur of immemorial woods. 
There are forests in England whose leafy 
noises may be shaped into Agincourt 
and the names of the battlefields of the 
Roses; oaks that dropped their acorns in 
the year that Henry viit. held his Field 
of the Cloth of Gold, and beeches that 
gave shelter to the deer when Shake- 
speare was a boy. There they stand, 
in sun and shower, the broad-armed wit- 
nesses of perished centuries; and sore 
must his need be who commandsa wood= 
land massacre. A great English tree, the 
rings of a centuryin its bole, is one of the 
noblest of natural objects; and it touches 
the imagination no less than the eye, for 


MY OWN GARDEN eI 
it grows out of tradition anda past order 
of things,and is pathetic with the sugges- 
tions of dead generations. "Trees waving 
a colony of rooks in the wind to-day, are 
older than historic lines. Trees are your 
best antiques. ‘There are cedars on Le- 
banon which the axes of Solomon spared, 
they say, when he was busy with his 
Temple; there are olives on Olivet that 
might have rustled in the ears of the 
Master and the Twelve; there are oaks 
in Sherwood which have tingled to the 
horn of Robin Hood, and have listened 
to Maid Marian’s laugh. Think of an 
existing Syrian cedar which is nearly as 
old as history, which was middle-aged be- 
fore the wolf suckled Romulus! Think 
of an existing English elm in whose 
branches the heron was reared which the 


hawks of Saxon Harold killed! If you 


Trees 
the best 
antiques 


On planting 
trees 


52 MY OWN GARDEN 


are a notable,and wish to be remembered, 
better plant a tree than build a city or 
strike a medal ; it will outlast both. 
My trees are young enough, and if 
they do not take me away into the past, 
they project me into the future. When 
I planted them, I knew I was performing 
an act, the issues of which would outlast 
melong. My oaksare butsaplings; but 
what undreamed-of English kings will 
they not outlive! I pluck my apples, 
my pears, my plums; and I know that 
from the same branches other hands will 
pluck apples, pears, and plums when this 
body of mine will have shrunk into a 
pinch of dust. Icannot dream with what 
year these hands will date their letters. 
A man does not plant a tree for himself, 
he plants it for posterity. And, sitting 
idly in the sunshine, I think at times of 


MY OWN GARDEN 53 
the unborn peoplewho will,tosome small 4 request 
extent, be indebted to me. Remember 
me kindly, ye future men and women ! 
When I am dead, the juice of my apples 
will foam and spurt in your cider-presses, 
my plums will gather for you their misty 
bloom ; and that any of your youngsters 
should be choked by one of my cherry- 
stones, merciful Heaven forfend ! 








Vv 
THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 


ALPHONSE KARR 








THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 


WILL delineate what my garden A delightful 
affords. The seasons, as they pass ©” 

away,are climates whichtravel round the 

globe,andcome toseekme.... But there 

is still another land, a delightful country, 

which would in vain be sought for on the 

waves ofthesea, oracrosslofty mountains. 

In that country, the flowers not only ex- 

hale sweet perfumes, but intoxicating 

thoughts of love. here every tree, every 

plant breathes, in a language more noble 

than poetry, and more sweet than music, 

things of which no human tongues can 

give an idea. ‘The sand of the roads is 

gold and precious stones ; the air is filled 

with songs, compared to which those of 

the nightingales and thrushes, which I 


now listen to, are no better than the 
57 


The poetic 
isles 


58 THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 


croaking of frogs in their reedy marshes. 
Man in that land is good, great, noble, 
and generous. 

There allthingsarethereverse of those 
which we see every day ; all the treasures 
of the earth, all dignities crowded to- 
gether, would be but objects ofridicule, if 
these were offered in exchange for afaded 
flower, or an old glove, left in a honey- 
suckle arbour. But why do I talk of 
honeysuckles? Why am I forced to give 
the names of flowers you know to the 
flowers of these charming regions? In 
this country no one believes in the exis- 
tence of perfidy, inconstancy, old age, 
death, or forgetfulness, which is the 
death of the heart. Life is there more 
wildly happy than dreams can aspire to 
be in other countries. Go, then, and 
seek these poetic isles, 


THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 59 


Alas! in reality it was but a poor little A shut-up 
garden, in a mean suburb, when I was doles 
eighteen, in love, and when she would 
steal thither for an instant at sunset ! 

So loved I a little shut-up garden ! 

After all, is the life anything but a ter- 
rible journey, without repose, and with 
but one common endin view? Isit any- 
thing more than arriving successively at 
various ages, and taking or leaving some- 
thingateach? Doesnotall thatsurrounds 
us change every year? Is not every agea 
different country? You were a child; 
you area young man; you may become 
anold man. Do you believe you shall find 
as much difference between two persons, 
however remote from each other they 
may be, as between you a child, and you 
an old man? 


You are in childhood ;—the man is 


Mystic 
happiness 


60 THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 


there with this fair hair, his bold, limpid 
glance, and his light and joyous heart ; 
he loves every one, and every one seems 
tolove him; everything gives him some- 
thing, and everything promises him still 
much more... . All give him pleasure, 
all whisper to him promises of mystic 
happiness. 

You arriveat youth; the body is active 
and strong, the heart noble and disinter- 
ested. ‘Chere, you violently break the 
playthings of your childhood, and smile 
at the importance you once attached to 
them, because you found some fresh play- 
things, with which you are as much in 
earnest as you were with your tops and 
balls. Now is the turn of friendship, 
love, heroism, and devotedness, — you 
have all these within you, and you look 
for them in others. But these are flowers 


THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMEN 61 
that fade, and do not flourish at the same 
time in every heart. With thisone, they 
are onlyin bud; with that, they have long 
since passed away. You ask aloud the 
accomplishment of your desires, as you 
would ask holy promises. ‘There is not 
a flower or a tree that does not appear to 
have betrayed you... . 

Days and years are darts which Death 
launches at us, it reserves the most pene- 
trating for old age; the early ones have 
destroyed successively your faiths, your 
passions, your virtues, your happiness. 
Now it pours in grape-shot! ... 

Tell me, are we to-day that which we 
were yesterday, or shall be to-morrow? 
Have we not cause to make singular 
observations upon ourselves daily? Do 
we not present a curious spectacle to our- 
selves? 


Flowers 
that fade 


62 THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 


Atouching Well, I will decide to commence my 
sentiment 
journey to-morrow, or perhaps I shall 
finish by finding that it is too great an 
exertion, even to make a tour of one’s 

garden. 

A touching sentiment has consecrated 
certain plants and certain trees to those 
who have departed this life: the cypress, 
which elevates its black foliage like a 
pyramid; the weeping willow, which en- 
velopesatombwithits pendent branches; 
the honeysuckle, which grows in ceme- 
teries more beautifully and vigorously 
than elsewhere, and which spreads a 
sweet odour, that seems to be the soul 
of the dead exhaling and ascending to 
heaven; the periwinkle, with its dark 
green foliage and blossoms of lapis blue, 
so fresh and so charming, and which the 


THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 63 


peasantry call the violet of the dead. But 
there are other flowers which associate 
themselves with certain joys, and certain 
dead griefs likewise ; for forgetfulness is 
the death of things which no longer live 
in the heart. 

‘These flowers return every year, at a 
fixed period, like anniversaries, to repeat 
tome manyrecitalsof the past, of perished 
trust and dead hope, of which nothing 
more remains than that which remains of 
the beloved dead—a tender sadness, and 
a melancholy which softens the heart. 

These ideas come back to me on see- 


The 
flowers’ 
return 


ing these forget-me-nots, these pretty 


little blue flowers, creeping almost into 
the water. 

Perhaps to all the world but me this 
large lime-tree is a magnificent tent of 
transparent green; you see birds hop 


The lime- 
tree 


64 THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 


about in its branches; and butterflies, 
which love silence and shade, flirt among 
the leaves like nymphs and fauns,and you 
inhale the sweet odour of its flowers. But 
for me, it seems that the wind which 
agitates these leaves, repeats to me all 
the things I have said and heard at the 
foot of another lime-tree, in far bygone 
times; the shade of the leaves of the tree, 
and the rays of the sun which they break, 
form for me images which I can only see 
there; that odour intoxicates me,troubles 
my reason, and plunges me into ecstasies 
and visions. ‘The Pythoness of old saw 
the future at the moment of inspiration ; 
I behold the past again, but not as past ; 
I tread over again every one of the steps 
I have made in life,everything lives again 
for me, with the colours of the vestments, 
the words that were spoken, and the 


THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 65 
sound of the voice. I do not forget the 
least circumstance ofasingle instant; by 
recalling a word, I see again a thousand 
details which I did not know [ had re- 
marked. I behold the folds of her robe 
and the reflection of her hair; I see how 
the sun and the shade played upon her 
countenance,and what flowers blossomed 
in the grass, and what odours were ex- 
haled in the air, and what distant noise 
was heard ; J see, I breathe, I hear all 
this ! 

If my eyes fall upon one of those 
ravenelles, of those gilly-flowers which 
blossom on the walls, if I breathe its 
balsamic perfume, I become the prey of 
an enchantment. I am twenty years 
old; I find myself no longer in this 
garden; I ascend a flight of stone steps, 
green with moss, in the crevices of which 

E 


Flower 
fragrance 


The 
convolyulus 


66 THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 


blossom gilly-flowers,and my heart beats 
as if I were about to find her in the 
garden. ‘That convolvulus, those beauti- 
ful violet, white, rose-coloured, streaked 
bells, which climb up trees and shrubs, 
tell me onwhat dayit was we sowed some 
of its seeds together, and at what hour 
of the day, and what was the form at that 
instant of the white clouds in the blue 
heavens, and how, on rising up, as we had 
stooped to put the seeds in the ground, 
our hair touched; and my hair again 
seems to communicate an electric shock 
to my heart. And, afterwards, how both 
arose early to see our convolvulus, whose 
flowers close and fade as soon as they 
are touched by the sun. I still know 
which of the plants bloomed first ; it was 
a large bell of a beautiful dark blue, pass- 
ing to violet in insensible gradations as 


THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 67 
the eye approached the bottom of the 
flower, which was white. “There were 
some white ones, divided by a rose- 
coloured, faint blue, or violet cross ; 
others of a pale rose, with a deep coloured 
cross ; some striped with white, rose, and 
violet. 

And the large Passe- Roses, with their 
nobleand majesticport,likethat of Italian 
poplars. There were lime-trees in the 
garden, a tuft of yellow blossoms always 
filled with bees, black and orange drones, 
and large black flies with violetwings. It 
appears to me when I here see the yellow 
Passe-Roses, and black flies with violet 
wings, and bees, and brown and orange 
drones ; itappearstome that these things, 
like those of another time, draw other cir- 
cumstances after them, like the beads of 
a rosary. 


Passe~Roses 


A flower 
monument 


68 THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT 
Blossom, blossom! graceful monu- 
ments which I have raised to my beloved 
dead, to all that I have believed, to all 
that I have loved,to all that I have hoped, 
toall that which like thee has blossomed 
in my heart, to all that has faded, but for 
ever, whilst every summer you return 
with your beauty, your youth, and your 


perfume ! 





VI 
QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN 


DR, JOHN BROWN 





QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN 


SQUEEN Mary’s BowER* 


‘The moated bower is wild and drear, 
And sad the dark yew’s shade ; 
The flowers which bloom in silence here, 
In silence also fade. 


The woodbine and the light wild rose 
Float o’er the broken wall ; 

And here the mournful nightshade blows, 
To note the garden’s fall. 


Where once a princess wept her woes, 
The bird of night complains; 
And sighing trees the tale disclose 
They learnt from Mary’s strains.’ 
F anyone wants a pleasure thatis sure A pleasure 
to please, one over which he needn’t 
growl the sardonic beatitude of the great 
Dean, let him, when the Mercury is at 


* Lines written on the steps of a small moated 


garden at Chatsworth, 
71 


Highland 
scenery 


72 QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN 


‘Fair, taketheninea.m.traintothe North 
and a return ticket for Callander, and 
whenhearrivesat Stirling, lethim askthe 
most obliging and knowing of station- 
masterstotelegraphto‘the Dreadnought’ 
for a carriage to be in waiting. When 
passing Dunblane Cathedral, let him re- 
solve to write to the Scotsman, advising 
the removal of a couple of shabby trees 
which obstruct the view of that beautiful 
triple end window which Mr. Ruskin and 
everybody else admires, and by the time 
he has written this letter in his mind, 
and turned the sentences to it, he will 
find himself at Callanderand the carriage 
all ready. Giving the order for the Port 
of Monteith, he will rattle through this 
hard-featured, and to our eye comfort- 
less village, lying ugly amid so much 
grandeur and beauty, and let him stop 





GROVE 


aa 


if 


3 
= 





QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN 93 


on the crown of the bridge, and fill his 
eyes with the perfection of the view 
up the Pass of Leny—the Teith lying 
diffuse and asleep, as if its heart were 
in the Highlands and it were loath to 
go, the noble Ben Ledi imaged in its 
broad stream. ‘Then let him make his 
way across a bit of pleasant moorland 
—flushed with maiden-hair and white 
with cotton grass, and fragrant with the 
Orchis conopsia, well deserving its epithet 
odoratissima. 

He will see from the turn of the hill- 
side the Blairof Drummond waving with 
corn and shadowed with rich woods, 
where eighty yearsago there was a black 
peat-moss ; and far off, on the horizon, 
Damyat and the Touch Fells; and at 
hisside the little loch of Ruskie, in which 
he may see five Highland cattle, three 


Highland 
scenery 


The Lake 
of Monteith 


74QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN 


tawny brown and two brindled, standing 
in the still water—themselvesas still, all 
except their switching tails and winking 
ears—the perfect images of quiet enjoy- 
ment. By this time he will have come 
in sight of the Lake of Monteith, set in 
its woods, with its magical shadows and 
soft gleams. ‘There is a loveliness, a 
gentleness and peace about it more like 
‘lone St. Mary’s Lake,’ or Derwent 
Water, than of any of its sister lochs. 
It is lovely rather than beautiful, and is 
a sort of gentle prelude, in the minor key, 
tothe coming glories and intensercharms 
of Loch Ard and the true Highlands 
beyond. 

You are now at the Port, and have 
passed the secluded and cheerful manse, 
and the parish kirk with its graves, close 
to the lake, and the proud aisle of the 


QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN 7s 


Grahams of Gartmore washed by its 
waves. Across the road is the modest 
little inn, a Fisher’s Tryst. On the un- 
ruffed water lie several islets, plump with 
rich foliage, brooding like great birds of 
calm. You somehow think of them as 
on, not in the lake, or like clouds lying 
in a nether sky—‘ like ships waiting for 
the wind.” You get a coble, anda yauld 
old Celt, its master, and are rowed across 
to Inchmahome, the Isle of Rest. Here you 
find on landing huge Spanish chestnuts, 
one lying dead, others standing stark and 
peeled, like gigantic antlers, and others 
flourishing in their viridis senectus, and in 
a thicket of wood you see the remains 
of a monastery of great beauty, the de- 
sign and workmanship exquisite. You 
wander through the ruins, overgrown 
with ferns and Spanish filberts, and old 


The Isle 
of Rest 


The child- 
Queen’s 
garden 


76QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN 


fruit trees, and at the corner of the old 
monkish garden you come upon one of 
the strangest and most touching sights 
you ever saw—an oval space of about 
eighteen feet by twelve, with the re- 
mains of a double row of boxwood all 
round, the plants of box being about 
fourteen feet high, and eight or nine 
inches in diameter, healthy, but plainly 
of great age. 

What is this ? it is called in the guide- 
books Queen Mary’s Bower; but besides 
its being plainly not in the least a bower, 
what could the little Queen, then five 
years old, and ‘fancy free,’ do with a 
bower? It is plainly, as was, we believe, 
first suggested by our keen-sighted and 
diagnostic Professor of Clinical Surgery, 
the Child-Queen’s Garden, with her little 
walk, and its rows of boxwood, left to 


QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN 77 
themselves for three hundred years. Yes, 
without doubt, ‘here is that first garden 
of her simpleness.’ Fancy the little, 
lovely royal child, with her four Marys, 
her playfellows, her child maids of 
honour, with their little hands and feet, 
and their innocent and happy eyes, pat- 
tering about that garden all that time 
ago, laughing, and running, and garden- 
ing as only children do and can. As is 
well knowu, Mary was placed by her 
mother in this Isle of Rest before sailing 
from the Clyde for France. There is 
something ‘that tirls the heartstrings 
a’ to the life’ in standing and looking 
on this unmistakable living relic of that 
strange and pathetic old time. Were 
we Mr. Tennyson, we would write an 
Idyll of that child Queen, in that garden 
of hers, eating her bread and honey— 


A living 
relic of 
the past 


The Queen 
of History 


78QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN 


getting her teaching from the holy men, 
the monks of old, and running off in wild 
mirth to her garden and her flowers, 
all unconscious of the black, lowering 
thunder-cloudon Ben Lomond’sshoulder. 
‘Oh, blessed vision ! happy child ! 
Thou art so exquisitely wild ; 
I think of thee with many fears 
Of what may be thy lot in future years. 
Ithought oftimes when Pain might bethy guest, 
Lord of thy house and hospitality. 
And Grief, uneasy lover ! never rest 
_ But when she sat within the touch of thee. - 
What hast thou to do with sorrow, 
Or the injuries of to-morrow ?’ 
You have ample time to linger there 
amid 
‘The gleams, the shadows, and the peace 
profound,’ 
and get your mind informed with quiet- 
ness and beauty, and fed with thoughts 
of other years, and of her whose story, 


QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDENj79 


like Helen of Troy’s, will continue to 
move the hearts of men as long as the 
grey hills stand round about that gentle 
lake, and are mirrored at evening in its 
depths. You may do ard enjoy all this, 
and be in Princes Street by nine p.m. ; 
and we wish we were as sure of many 
things as of your saying, ‘ Yes, this zsa 
pleasure that has pleased, and will please 
again; this was something expected 


which did not disappoint.’ 


There is another garden of Queen 
Mary’s, which may still be seen, and 
which has been left to itself like that in 
the Isle of Rest. It is in the grounds at 
Chatsworth,and ismoated, walled round, 
and raised about fiftcen feet above the 
park, Here the Queen, when a prisoner 
under the charge of ‘Old Bess of Hard- 


A pleasure 
that has 
pleased 


80QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN 


At wake,’ was allowed to walk without any 


Chatsworth guard. How different the two! and how 


different she who took her pleasure in 
them ! 





VII 


A VANISHED GARDEN 


SIR WALTER SCOTT 





A VANISHED GARDEN 


T must be acknowledged that there 
exist gardens, the work of Lou- 
don, Wise, and such persons as laid out 
groundsin the Dutch taste, which would 
be much better subjects for modification 
than for absolute destruction. ‘Their 
rarity now entitles them to some care 
as a species of antiques, and unquestion- 
ably they give character to some snug, 
quiet, and sequestered situations which 
would otherwise have no marked fea- 
ture of any kind. We ourselves retain 
an early and pleasing recollection of the 
seclusion of such a scene. Asmall cot- 
tage adjacent to a beautiful village, the 
habitation of an ancient maiden lady, 
was for some time our abode. It was 


situated in a garden of seven or eight 
83 


Antique 
gardens 


Bower and 
arbour 


$4. A VANISHED GARDEN 


acres, planted, about the. beginning of 
the eighteenth century, by one of the 
Millars, related to the author of the 
Gardener's Dictionary, or, for aught we 
know, by himself. It was full of long 
straight walks between hedges of yew 
and hornbeam, which rose tall and close 
on every side. ‘There were thickets of 
flowering shrubs, a bower, and an arbour, 
to which access was obtained through a 
little maze of contorted walks, calling 
itself a labyrinth. In the centre of the 
bower was a splendid Platanus, or oriental 
plane—a huge hill of leaves—one of the 
noblest specimens of that reputably 
beautiful tree which we remember ta 
have seen. Indifferent partsof the garden 
were fine ornamental trees which had 
attained great size, and the orchard was 
filled with fruit-trees of the best descrip- 


A VANISHED GARDEN _ 85 


tion. There were seats and trellis-walks 
and a banqueting house. Even in our 
time this little scene, intended to present 
a formal exhibition of vegetable beauty, 
was going fast to decay. The parterres 
of flowers were no longer watched by the 
quiet and simple friends under whose 
auspices they had been planted,and much 
of the ornament of the domain had been 
neglected or destroyed to increase its 
productive value. We visited it lately, 
after an absence of many years. Its air 
of retreat, the seclusion which its alleys 
afforded, was entirely gone; the huge 
Platanus had died, like most of its kind, 
in the beginning of this century; the 
hedges were cut down, the trees stubbed 
up, and the whole character of the place 
so much destroyed, that I was glad when 
I could leave it. 


A garden of 
the past 





Vil 


A GARDEN BY THE CLYDE 


‘é JOHN WILSON 


(CHRISTOPHER NORTH) 


~ eae Tae 
sha “Ss ese 
cnr ee 


~~ Shea 








GS CIE EL LILI BE 


EES 


> 


REET 


a ae ee 


Fes 


ae 


COT: 


OER OO 


j 
| 
j 























A GARDEN BY THE CLYDE 


E have all ourlives envied Adam, The Garden 
: : of Eden 
Yet, would you believe it, not 
for his abode in Paradise. The soul can- 
not now conceive a perfectly sinless and 
perfectly happy state of being; and a 
mere name, and no more, to our ear Is 


the garden of Eden, ere was plucked 


‘That forbidden fruit, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe.’ 


Our first parents are not felt to be our 
first parents till they have fallen; then it 
is that we indeed love them; our filial 
affection is made tender by pity, and 
awful by fear, and we weep to think of 
them, as they, 


‘Hand in hand, and slow, 
Through Eden took their solitary way.’ 


It was original sin that made this earth 


so beautiful, that gave it a beauty dashed 
89 


Adam and 
Paradise 


99 A GARDEN BY THE CLYDE 
and broken with tears. Look long at a 
rose-bush covered with lapsing dew- 
drops, and you grow sorrowful, full of 
sorrow. If there were not the conscious- 
ness of some great loss, and the presage 
ofsome great restoration,asightso simple 
in its puritycould not so profoundly move 
the spirit, as that its confession should be 
a prayer. Not surely in form and colour 
alone lies the beauty of the rainbow. 
We envy Adam because he was driven 
from Paradise. For a while the earth for 
him and poor Eve brcught forth but 
thorns, so is it writ. But as the wind 
blew from Paradise, it brought seeds that 
sowed themselves in the desert, till ere- 
long the desert blossomed like the rose. 
Assisted by younger hands, Adam could 
afford to steal an hour or two, as the sun 
was westering, from the toil of field till- 


A GARDEN BY THE CLYDE ‘9! 
age, and through the twilight, and some- 4 ,,.,, 
Garden 


times well on into the night, would he Sea 


and Eve, not unregarded by the stars, 
work bytheir two selves, shaping bowers, 
and arbours, and glades, so as to form, by 
a model imperishable in their memories, 
another small new garden of Eden, not, 
indeed,so delightful, but dearer, far dearer, 
to their souls, because every leaf was 
tinted by grief. Melancholy names did 
they give, then, to the thoughtless plants 
and flowers, and they loved them the 
better that thenceforth they reminded 
them always, but not painfully, of their 
transgression, now suffering a punish- 
ment so softened, that it sometimes was 
felt to bea chastened peace. ‘Their hill- 
side garden sloped to a stream, that, no 
doubt, was a branch of the holy river, of 
which the blind seer sings, ‘southward 


All gardens 
are beautiful 


92 A GARDEN BY THE CLYDE 
through Eden went a river large.’ We 
see the vision now, but fear to paint it. 
Eve is still in her mortal prime; and as 
for Adam, not Seth’s self is comparable 
to his sire, though his parents were wont 
to say, that their Seth had a face and a 
form that reminded them of one of the 
angels, that to be indeed an angel, he 
wanted but those wings that winnowed 
fragrance through the air as they de- 
scended on Paradise. 

And thus it is that to us all gardens 
are beautiful, and all gardeners Adam’s 
favourite sons. Anorchard! Families 
of fruit-trees nigh planted by a river,’ 
and that riverthe Clyde. ‘Till we gazed 
on you, we knew not how dazzling may 
be the delicate spring,even more than the 
gorgeous autumn with all her purple and 
gold. No frost can wither, no blast can 


A GARDEN BY THE CLYDE 93 
scatter such a power of blossoming as 
there brightens the day with promise 
that the gladdened heart may not fora 
moment doubt will be fulfilled! And 
now we walk arm in arm with a vener- 
able lady along a terrace hung high above 
a river—but between us and the brink of 





the precipice aleafless lawn—notof grass, 
but of moss, whereon centuries seem 
softly embedded—and lo! we are looking 
—to the right down down the glen, and 
to the left up up the glen—though to the 
leftittakes a majestic bend,sothat yonder 
castle, seemingly in front of us, stands on 
one of its cliffs. Now we are looking 
over the top of the holly-hedges twenty 
feet high, and over the stately yew-pawns 
and peacocks; but hark! the flesh-and- 
blood peacock shrieking from the pine ! 
Anold English garden, such as Bacon, or 


A terrace 
view 


94 A GARDEN BY THE CLYDE 
Garden Evelyn, or Cowley would have loved— 
open felicitously placed, with all its solemn 
calm, above the reach of the roar of a 
Scottish flood ! 

But we shall not permit the visions of 
gardens thus to steady themselves be- 
fore our imagination; and,since they will 
come, away must they pass like magic 
shadows on a sheet. There you keep 
eliding in hundreds along with your eld 
English halls, or rectories, or parsonages 
—some, alas! looking dilapidated and 
forlorn, but few in ruins, and, thank 
heaven! many of youin the decayof time 
renewed by love, and many more still 
fresh and strong,though breathing of an- 
tiquity, as when there was not one leaf of 
all that mass of ivy in which the highest 
chimneys are swathed and buried all the 
gables. Oh! stay but for one moment 


A GARDEN BY THE CLYDE 0 


longer, thou garden of the cliffs! Gone 
by! with all thine imagery, half-garde 
and half-forest, reflected in thine own 
tarn, and with thee a glimmer of green 
mountains and of dusky woods! Sweet 
visionary shadow of the poor man’s cot 
and garden! ° A blessing be upon thee, 
almost on the edge of the bleak moor | 
But villages, and towns, and cities 
travel by mistily, carrying before our 
ken many a green series of little rural 
or suburban gardens, all cultivated by 
owners’ or tenants’ hands, and beneath 
the blossomed fruit-trees, the ground 
variegated with many a flush of flowers. 
What pinks! Aye, we know them well, 
the beautiful garden-plots on the banks 
and braes all round about our native 
town, pretty Paisley—and in among the 
very houses in nooks and corners which 


A flush 
of flowers 


95 A GARDEN BY THE CLYDE 


The the sunshine does not scorn to visit—and 
loveliest 

fower#S the glamour goes by, sweet to our 

soul is thethought of the Kilbarchan, the 

loveliest flower in heaven or on earth, for 

tis the prize-pink of our childhood, given 

us by our Father’s hand, and we see now 


the spot where the fine-grained glory 


grew. 





IX 
COWPER’S GARDEN 


(FROM HIS LETTERS) 





COWPER’S GARDEN 
ee ia: G was, of all employ- winter 


ments, that in which I succeeded “““* 
best ; though even in this I did not sud- 
denly attain perfection. I began with 
lettuces and cauliflowers: from them I 
proceeded to cucumbers; nextto melons. 
Ithen purchasedanorange-tree, towhich, 
in due time, ladded two or three myrtles. 
These served me day and night with em- 
ployment during a whole severe winter. 
To defend them from the frost, in a situa- 
tion that exposed them to its severity, 
cost me much ingenuity and much at- 
tendance. I contrived to give thema fire 
heat ; and have waded night after night 
through the snow, with the bellows 
under my arm, just before going to bed, 


to give the latest possible puff to the 
99 


A great 
florist 


100 COWPER’S GARDEN 


embers, lest the frost should seize them 
before morning. Very minute begin- 
nings have sometimes important conse- 
quences. From nursing two or three 
little evergreens, I became ambitious of 
a green-house, and accordingly built 
one; which, verse excepted, afforded me 
amusement for a longer time than any 
expedient of all the many to which I 
have fled for refuge from the misery of 
having nothing to do. When I left 
Olney for Weston, I could no longer 
have a green-house of my own; but in 
a neighbour’s garden I find a better, of 
which the sole management is consigned 
to me. 
March 14, 1767. 

I am become a great florist, and shrub- 
doctor. If the Major can make up a 
small packet of seeds, that will make a 


COWFER’S GARDEN oa 


figure in a garden, where we have little Melons 
else besides jessamine and honeysuckle ; 
such a packet I mean as may be put in 
one’s fob, I will promise to take great 
care of them, as I ought to value natives 
of the Park. They must not be such 
however as require great skill in the 
management, for at present I have no 
skill to spare. 
Aug. 1, 1776. 

The coldness of the past season would 
be forgotten in the heat of the present, 
if the effects of it were not still visible 
inthe garden. My melons, which ought 
to have been eaten or at least eatable by 
this time, are not yet ripe; and as you 
are making your repose at Wargrove, 
you will agree with me, I imagine, that 
it would hardly be worth while to trundle 
themso far. Else, as I flatter myself they 


102 COWPER’S GARDEN 


ponents will be better davoured than such as are 
raised for sale, which are generally flashy, 
and indebted to the watering-pot for 
their size, I should have been glad to 
have sent you half my crop. 

If it were to rain pupils, perhaps I 
might catch a tub full; but till it does, 
the fruitlessness of my inquiries makes 
me think I must keep my Greek and 
Latin to myself. 

Dec. 3, 1778. 

I made Mr. Wright’s gardener a pre- 
sent of fifty sorts of stove plant seeds: 
in return, he has presented me with six 
fruiting pines, which I have put into a 
bark bed, where they thrive at present 
as well as I could wish. If they produce 
good fruit, you will stand some little 
chance to partake of them. But you 


must not expect giants, for being trans- 


COWPER’S GARDEN 103 


planted in December will certainly give 
them a check, and probably diminish 
their size. He has promised to supply 
me with still better plants in October, 
which is the proper season for moving 
them, and with a reinforcement every 
succeeding year. Mrs. Hill sent me the 
seeds ; which perhaps could not have 
been purchased for less than three 
guineas. *Tis thus we great gardeners 
establish a beneficial intercourse with 
each other, and furnish ourselves with 
valuable things that, therefore, cost us 
nothing. 
Nov. 16, 1782. 

You may not, perhaps, live to see your 
trees attain to the dignity of timber ;— 
I, nevertheless, approve of your planting, 
and the disinterested spirit that prompts 
youtoit. Few people plant, when they 


Beneficial 
intercourse 


Tree- 
planting 


104 COWPER’S GARDEN 


are young; a thousand other less profit- 
able amusements divert their attention ; 
and most people, when the date of youth 
is once expired, think it too late to begin. 
I can tell you, however, for your comfort 
and encouragement, that when a grove, 
which Major Cowper had planted, was 
of eighteen years’ growth,it was no small 
ornament to his grounds, and afforded as 
complete a shade as could be desired. 
Were I as old as your mother, in whose 
longevity I rejoice, and the more, because 
I consider it as, in some sort, a pledge 
and assurance of yours, and should come 
to the possession of land worth planting, 
I would begin to-morrow,and even with- 
out previously insisting upona bond from 
Providence that I should live five years 


longer. 


” 











COWPER’S GARDEN 105 


February 20, 1783. 
I have been refreshing myself with a 
walk in the garden, where I find that 
January (who according to Chaucer was 


the husband of May) being dead, Feb- 


ruary has married the widow. 


Fune 8, 1783. 

Our severest winter, commonly called 
the spring, is now over, and I find myself 
seated in my favourite recess, the green- 
house. In such a situation, so silent, so 
shady, where no human foot is heard, 
and where only my myrtles presume to 
peep in at the window, you may suppose 
I have no interruption to complain of, 
and that my thoughtsare perfectly at my 
command. But the beauties of the spot 
are themselves an interruption; my at- 
tention is called upon by those very 


My 
favourite 
recess 


Advice 


the COWPER’S GARDEN 


myrtles, by a double row of grass pinks 
just beginning to blossom, and by a bed 
of beans already in bloom ; and you are 
to consider it, if you please, as no small 
proof of my regard, that though you have 
so many powerful rivals, I disengage my- 
self from them all, and devote this hour 
entirely to you. 
Nov. 10, 1783. 

I suspect you of being too sedentary. 
‘You cannot walk.’ Why you cannot 
is best known toyourself. [am sure your 
legs are long enough, and your person 
does not overload them. But I beseech 
you ride, and ride often. I think I have 
heard you say, you cannot even do that 
without an object. Is not health an 
object? Is not a new prospect, which 
in most countries is gained at the end of 
every mile, an object? Assure yourself 


COWPER’S GARDEN 107 


Rura! 


that easy-chairs are no friends to cheer- 
pleasure 


fulness, and that a long winter spent by 
the fireside is a prelude to an unhealthy 
spring. Everything I see in the fields is 
to me an object, and I can look at the 
same rivulet, or at a handsome tree, every 
day of my life, with new pleasure. This 
indeed is partly the effect of a natural 
taste for rural beauty, and partly the 
effect of habit; for I never in all my life 
have let slip the opportunity of breath- 
ing fresh air, and of conversing with 
nature, when I could fairly catch it. I 
earnestly recommend a cultivation of the 
same taste to you, suspecting that you 
have neglected it, and suffer for doing so. 


Fune 25, 1785. 
I write in a nook that I call my 
Boudoir. Itisasummer-house not much 


“My 
Boudoir’ 


108 COWPER’S GARDEN 


bigger than a sedan chair, the door of 
which opens into the garden, that is now 
crowded with pinks, roses, and honey- 
suckles, and the window into my neigh- 
bour’s orchard. It formerly served an 
apothecary, now dead, as a smoking- 
room; and under my feet is a trap- 
door, which once covered a hole in the 
ground, where he kept his bottles. At 
present, however, it is dedicated to sub- 
limer uses. Having lined it with garden 
mats, and furnished it with a table and 
two chairs, here I write all that I write 
in summer-time, whether to my friends, 
or to the public. It is secure from all 
noise, and refuge from all intrusion ; for 
intruders sometimes trouble me in the 
winter evenings at Olney. But (thanks 
to my Boudoir !) I can now hide myself 
from them. A poet’s retreat is sacred, 


COWPER’S GARDEN 109 
Fuly 9, 1785. 

I told you, I believe, that the Spinney 
has been cut down ; and, though it may 
seem sufficient to have mentioned such 
an occurrence once, I cannot help recur- 
ring to the melancholy theme. Last 
night, at near nine o’cleck, we entered 
it for the first time thissummer. We 
had not walked many yards in it, before 
we perceived that this pleasant retreat is 
destined never to be a pleasant retreat 
again. In one more year, the whole will 
be a thicket. That which was once 
the serpentine walk is now in a state of 
transformation, and is already become as 
woody as the rest. Poplars and elms with- 
cut number are springing in the turf. 
Theyare now as highastheknee. Before 
the summer is ended, they will be twice 
as high; and thegrowthof another season 


The 
Spinney 


Farewell, 
Spinney ! 


tee COWPER’S GARDEN 
will make them trees. It will then be 


impossible for any but a sportsman and 
his dog to penetrate it. “The desolation 
of the whole scene is such, that it sunk 
our spirits. “The ponds are dry. The 
circular one, in front of the hermitage, 
is filled with flags and rushes; so that, 
if it contains any water, not a drop is 
visible. “The weeping willow at the side 
of it, the only ornamental plant that has 
escaped the axe, is dead. ‘The ivy and 
the moss, with which the hermitage was 
lined, are torn away ; and the very mats 
that covered the benches have been 
stripped off, rentin tatters, and trodden 
under foot. So farewell, Spinney; I have 
promised myself that I will never enter 
it again. We have both prayed in it: 
you for me, and I for you. But it is 
desecrated from this time forth, and the 


COWPER’S GARDEN tit 
voice of prayer will be heard in it no 
more. ‘The fate of it in this respect, 
however deplorable,is not peculiar. The 
spotwhere Jacob anointed his pillar, and, 
which is more apposite, the spot once 
honoured with the presence of Him who 
dwelt in the bush, have long since suf- 
fered similar disgrace, and are become 
common ground. 

Feb. 9, 1786. 
Let me tell you once more, that your 
kindness in promising us a visit has 
charmed us both. I shall see you again. 
J shall hear your voice. We shall take 
walks together. I willshow you my pro- 
spects, the hovel, the alcove, the Ouse, 


and its banks, everything that I have de- 


scribed. [ anticipatethe pleasureof those 
days not very far distant, and feel a part 
of itatthismoment. . . . I will not let 


Desecration 


The 


greenhouse 


Er COWPER’S GARDEN 


you come till the end of May, or begin- 
ning of June, because before that time my 
green-house will not be ready to receive 
us, and it is the only pleasant room be- 
longing to us. When the plants go out, 
we goin. I[ line it with mats, and spread 
the floor with mats; and there you shall 
sit with a bed of mignonette at your side, 
and a hedge of honeysuckles, roses, and 
jasmine ; and I[ will make you a bouquet 
of myrtle every day. Sooner than the 
time I mention the country will not be 
in complete beauty. And I will tell you 
what you shall findat your first entrance. 
Imprimis, as soon as you have entered the 
vestibule, if you cast a look on either side 
of you, you shall see on the right hand a 
box of mymaking. It isthe box in which 
have been lodged all my hares, and in 
which lodges Puss at present: but he, 


COWPER’S GARDEN ee 


poor fellow, is worn out with age, and 
promises to die before you can see him. 
On the right hand stands a cupboard, the 
work of thesame author ; it was oncea 
dove-cage, but I transformed it. Oppo- 
site to you stands a table, which I also 
made; but a merciless servant having 
scrubbed it until it became paralytic, it 
serves no purpose now but of ornament ; 
and all myclean shoesstand underit. On 
the left hand, at the further end of this 
superb vestibule, you will find the door of 
the parlour, into which I will conduct 
you. 
May 1, 1786. 

Nothing can be more obliging than 
the behaviour of the Throckmortons has 
ever been to us; they long since gave us 
the keys of all their retreats, even of their 
kitchen-garden. And that you may not 

H 


The keys of 
the garden 


Myrtles 


I14 COWPER’S GARDEN 


suspect your cousin of being any other 
than a very obliging creature too, I will 
give youastroke of his politesse. When 
they were here they desired to see the 
garden and green-house. I am proud of 
neither, except in poetry, because there 
I can fib without lying, and represent 
them better than they are. However, I 
conducted them to the sight, and having 
set each of the ladies with her head ina 
bush of myrtle, I took out my scissors and 
cut a bouquet for each of them. When 
we were with them Mrs. Throckmorton 
told me that she had put all the slips into 
water, for she should be so glad to make 
them grow, and asked me if they would 
strike root. I replied, that I had known 
suchthings happen, but believed that they 
were very rare, and recommended a hot- 
bed rather, and she immediately resolved 


COWPER’S GARDEN 118 


that they should have one. . . . In the 
evening I ordered my labourer to trundle 
up a wheelbarrow of myrtles and canary 
lavender (a most fragrant plant), to 
Weston, with which I sent a note to 
Mrs. Throckmorton, recommending 
them to her protection. 
May 29, 1786. 

Spring, backward as it is, is too for- 
ward, because many of its beauties will 
have faded before you will have an 
Opportunity to see them. We took our 
customary walk yesterday in the wilder- 
ness at Weston, and saw, with regret, 
the laburnums, syringas, and guelder- 
roses, some of them blown, and others 
just upon the point of blowing, and 
could not help observing—all these will 
be gone before Lady Hesketh comes! 
Still however there will be roses, and 


The fading 
flowers 


116 COWPER'S GARDEN 


The jasmine, and honeysuckle, and shady 


passion for 
retirement 


walks, and cool alcoves, and you will 
partake them with us. But I want you 
to have a share of everything that 1s 
delightful here, and cannot bear that the 
advance of the season should steal away 
a single pleasure before you can come to 
enjoy it. 
Fune 27, 1788. 

The country, this country at least, is 
pleasant at all times, and when winter is 
come, or near at hand, we shall have the 
better chance for being snug. I know 
your passion for retirement indeed, or for 
what we call deedy retirement. ... You 
will . . . find here exactly the retire- 


.ment in question. I have made in the 


orchard the best winter-walk in all the 
parish, sheltered from the east, and from 
the north-east, and open to the sun, ex- 


COWPER’S GARDEN 117 


cept at his rising, all the day. ‘Then we Our 

will have Homerand Don Quixote: and mises 
then we will have saunter and chat, and 
one laugh more before we die. Our 
Orchard is alive with creatures of all 
kinds; poultry of every denomination 
swarms in it, and pigs, the drollest in 


the world ! 
Fuly 28, 1788. 

You have given me a most complete 
idea of your mansion and its situation ; 
and I doubt not that with your letter in 
my hand by way of map, could I be set 
down on thespot in a moment, I should 
find myself qualified to take my walks 
and my pastime in whatever quarter of 
your paradise it should please me the 
most to visit. We also, as you know, 
have scenes at Weston worthy of descrip- 


tion; but because you know them well, 


The lime 
walk 


118 COWPER’S GARDEN 


I will only say that one of them has, 
within these few days, been much im- 
proved; I mean the lime walk. By the 
help of the axe and the wood-bill which 
have of late been constantly employed in 
cutting out all straggling branches that 
intercepted the arch, Mr. Throckmorton 
has now defined it with such exactness, 
that no cathedral in the world can show 
one of more magnificence or beauty. I 
bless myself that I live so near it; for 
were it distant several miles, it would be 
well worth while to visit it, merely as an 
object of taste ; not to mention the re- 
freshment of such a gloom both to the 
eyes and spirits.. And these are the 
things which our modern improvers of 
parks and pleasure grounds have dis- 
placed without mercy, because, forsooth, 
they arerectilinear! Itisa wonder they 


COWPER’S GARDEN 119 


do not quarrel with the sunbeams for the 
same reason. 
Sept. 6, 1793- 

It was only the day before yesterday 
that, while we walked after dinner in the 
orchard, Mrs. Unwin between Sam and 
me, hearing the hall-clock, I observed a 
great difference between that and ours, 
and began immediately to lament, as I 
had often done, that there was not a sun- 
dial in all Weston to ascertain the true 
time for us. My complaint was long, 
and lasted till having turned into the 
grass walk, we reached the new building 
at the end of it; where we sat awhile 
and reposed ourselves. Ina few minutes 
we returned by the way we came, when 
what think you was my astonishment to 
see what I had not seen before, though I 
had passed close by it, a smart sun-dial 


An 
astonishing 
discovery 


Sam 
Roberts 


120 COWPER’S GARDEN. 

mounted on a smart stone pedestal; I 
assure you it seemed the effect of con- 
juration. I stopped short,and exclaimed, — 
—‘Why, here is a sun-dial, and upon our 
eround! Howis this? ‘Tell me, Sam, 
how came it here? Do you know any- 
thing about it?’ At first I really thought 
(that is to say, as soon as I could think 
at all) that this factotum of mine, Sam 
Roberts, having often heard me deplore 
the want of one, had given orders for the 
supply of that want himself, without my 
knowledge, and was half pleased and half 
offended. But he soon exculpated him- 
self by imputing the fact toyou. It was 
brought up to Weston (it seems) about | 
noon: but Andrews stopped the cart at 
the blacksmith’s, whence he went to in- 
quire if I was gone for my walk. As it 
happened, I walked not till two o’clock. 








COWPER’S GARDEN ore 
So there it stood waiting till I should go 
forth, and was introduced before my re- 
turn. Fortunately too I went out at the 
church end of the village, and conse- 
quently saw nothing of it. How I could 
possibly pass it without seeing it, when it 
stood in the walk, I know not, but it is 
certain that I did. And where I shall 
fix it now, I know as.little. It cannot 
stand between the two gates, the place 
of your choice, as I understand from 
Samuel, because the hay-cart must pass 
that way intheseason. But weare now 
busy in winding the walk all round the 
orchard, and in doing so shall doubtless 
stumble at last upon some open spot that 
will suit it. 
There it shall stand, while I live, a 


constant monument of your kindness. 


The 


sun~dial 


* 








x 


OF QUEENS’ GARDENS 


JOHN RUSKIN 


ayes 





OF QUEENS’ GARDENS 
AVE you ever considered what a 


deep under meaning there lies, or 
at least may be read, if we choose, in our 
custom of strewing flowers before those 
whom we think most happy? Do you 
suppose it is merely to deceive them into 
the hope that happiness is always to fall 
thus in showers at their feet '—that wher- 
ever they pass they will tread on herbs of 
sweet scent, and that the rough ground 
will be made smooth for them by depth of 
roses? Sosurelyas they believe that, they 
will have, instead,to walk on bitter herbs 
and thorns; and the only softness to their 
feet will be of snow. But it is not thus 
intended they should believe; there is a 


better meaning inthat old custom. The 
125 


Of the 


strewing 


of flow 


5 
eTs 


126 OF QUEENS’ GARDENS 


The path path of a good woman is indeed strewn 
eee with flowers ; but they rise behind her 
steps, not before them. ‘ Her feet have 
touched the meadows, and left the daisies 
rosy.’ 
You think that only a lover’s fancy ; 
—false and vain! How if it could be 
true? You think thisalso, perhaps, only 
a poet’s fancy— 
‘Even the light harebell raised its head 
Elastic from her airy tread.’ 
But it is little to say of a woman, that she 
only does not destroy where she passes. 
She should revive; the harebells should 
bloom, not stoop, as she passes. You 
think I am rushing into wild hyperbole? 
Pardon me, not a whit—I mean what I 
say in calm English, spoken in resolute 
truth. You have heard it said—(and I 
believe there is more than fancy even in 


OF QUEENS’ GARDENS. 127 
that saying, but let it pass for a fanciful 
one)—that flowers only flourish rightlyin 
the garden of some one who loves them. 
I know you would like that to be true ; 
you would think it a pleasant magic if 
you could flush your flowersinto brighter 
bloom by a kind look upon them: nay, 
more, if your look had the power, not 
onlyto cheer, but to guard ;—if you could 
bid the black blight turn away, and the 
knotted caterpillar spare—if you could 
bidthe dew fall uponthem in thedrought, 
and say to the south wind, in frost— 
‘Come, thou south, and breathe upon 
my garden, that the spices of it may flow 


out.’ 


This you would think a great 
thing? And do you think it not a 
greaterthing,that all this(and how much 
more than this!) you can do, for fairer 


flowers than these—flowers that could 


Garden 
magic 


Flower 
thoughts 
and flower 
lives 


128 OF QUEENS’ GARDENS 


bless you for having blessed them, and 
will love you for having loved them ;— 
flowers that have thoughts like yours, 
and lives like yours; and which, once 
saved, you save for ever? Is this onlya 
little power? Far among the moorlands 
and the rocks,—far in the darkness of the 
terrible streets,—these feeble florets are 
lying, with all their fresh leaves torn, 
and their stems broken—wiill you never 
go down to them, nor set them ia 
order in their little fragrant beds, nor 
fence them, in their trembling, from 
the ferce wind? Shall morning follow 
morning, for you, but not for them ; and 
the dawn rise to watch, far away, those 
frantic Dances of Death; but no dawn 
rise to breathe upon these living banks 
of wild violet, and woodbine, and rose ; 
nor call to you, through your casement, 


OF QUEENS’ GARDENS 129 


—call (not giving you the name of the A garden 
ne a : : ,_ invitation 
Engiish poet’s lady, but the name Dante’s 
great Matilda, who on the edge of happy 
Lethe, stood, wreathing flowers with 


flowers), saying,— 
‘Come into the garden, Maud, 
For the black bat, night, has flown, 
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad 
And the musk of the roses blown’ ? 


Will you not go down among them? 
among those sweet living things, whose 
new courage, sprung from the earth with 
the deep colour of heaven upon it, is start- 
ing up in strength of goodly spire; and 
whose purity, washed from the dust, is 
opening, bud by bud, into the flower of 
promise ; and still they turn to you and 
for you, ‘ The Larkspur listens—I hear, 
Thear! And the Lily whispers—I wait.’ 

Did you notice that I missed two lines 
when I read you that first stanza; and 

I 


130 OF QUEENS’ GARDENS 


A sweeter think that I had forgotten them? Hear 


arden 
. them now :— 


‘Come into the garden, Maud, 
For the black bat, night, has flown. 
Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate, alone,’ 


Who is it, think you, who stands at 
the gate of this sweeter garden, alone, 
waiting for you? Did you ever hear, 
not of a Maud, but a Madeleine, who 
went down to her garden in the dawn, 
and found Onewaiting at the gate, whom 
she supposed to be the gardener? Have 
you not sought Him often; sought Him 
in vain, all through the night; sought 
Him in vain at the gate of that old garden 
where the fiery sword is set? He is 
never there; but atthe gate of this garden 
He is waiting always—waiting to take 
your hand—ready to go down to see the 
fruits of the valley, to see whether the 


OF QUEENS’ GARDENS 131 
vine has flourished, and the pomegranate The 
budded. There you shall see with Him aoe et 
the little tendrils of the vines that His 
hand is guiding—there you shall see the 
pomegranate springing where His hand 
cast thesanguine seed ;—-more: you shall 
see the troops of the angel keepers that, 
with their wings, wave away the hungry 
birds from the pathsides where He has 
sown, and call to each other between the 
vineyard rows, ‘ Take us the foxes, the 
little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our 
vines have tender grapes.” Oh—you 
queens—you queens; among the hills 
and happy greenwood of this land of 
yours, shall the foxes have holes and the 
birds of the air have nests; and in your 
cities shall the stones cry out against you, 
that they are the only pillows where the 

Son of Man can lay His head? 








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7 = 


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yin, te 
me 


* 











ITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 


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